Bennett has played fine. Just given no opportunity. Can't show any skill when Sutter and some AHL guy is your winger 90% of the time. He's a good winger, not an elite player like Crosby or others that can make something out of nothing.

How much time? Gibbons did more with the 10 minutes that he got than Bennett has done in the 10 games he played so far this year. He didn't need much time to make a statement. Also, Jeffrey played 100 NHL games and yesterday people were saying that he didn't get enough opportunity either. For one guy 10 minutes was enough, for another 100 games was not...

How much time? Gibbons did more with the 10 minutes that he got than Bennett has done in the 10 games he played so far this year. He didn't need much time to make a statement. Also, Jeffrey played 100 NHL games and yesterday people were saying that he didn't get enough opportunity either. For one guy 10 minutes was enough, for another 100 games was not...

Let's see how he looks after 10, 20 games on Crosby's line. I hope whoever is your boss doesn't judge you long term worth on such a small sample size.

How much time? Gibbons did more with the 10 minutes that he got than Bennett has done in the 10 games he played so far this year. He didn't need much time to make a statement. Also, Jeffrey played 100 NHL games and yesterday people were saying that he didn't get enough opportunity either. For one guy 10 minutes was enough, for another 100 games was not...

Blysma leans way too heavily on his top end guys. Even Sutter only plays 14 minutes. Malkin, Crosby, Kunitz all +20. Neal and Dupuis play @ 17. Everyone else is in the 10-13 minutes range. Gotta let the kids play. Part of the reason this team lacks secondary scoring is because the guys looked to for that play only half a period.

A suprising stat? Other than Gibbons and Megna, the 2nd leading scorer on this team per 60 minutes is Brandon Sutter.

If you want to punish him, slide him down the lineup. No one gets benched unless theyre completely awful. Bennett showed no more reason to be taken out thany any other skater in the first last night. No one responds favorably to that kind of "motivation".

i saw a lot of guys stop playing to complain to the ref about offsides before the ducks scored their goal. bennett wasn't one of those guys. but sure, demote the hell out of him, DB. it's not like orpik is supposed to be a leader and it was Sid's guy that scored the goal or anything.

How much time? Gibbons did more with the 10 minutes that he got than Bennett has done in the 10 games he played so far this year. He didn't need much time to make a statement. Also, Jeffrey played 100 NHL games and yesterday people were saying that he didn't get enough opportunity either. For one guy 10 minutes was enough, for another 100 games was not...

Let's see how he looks after 10, 20 games on Crosby's line. I hope whoever is your boss doesn't judge you long term worth on such a small sample size.

As I mentioned, I do not think that he should have been bumped... but discussion of being given a chance is just far too fluid. I was pointing out that one guy did more with far less. (Granted, Gibbons could go on to look like the worst player to ever play and end his career with 1 goal and 1 assist... but the point holds for now). Then the other end is Jeffrey who got 100 games, and that still was not enough for some people.

Mt office however, we have reviews at 3 months, 6 months, 1 year, then yearly after that. 3 months equivalent would have been last year for Bennett, 6 months is now-ish... I would be willing to take him off of provisional but not promote him.

This conversation goes deeper than # of games. Being given a chance to succeed means being put into a role that a player can excel at. I'd argue that Jeffrey excelled in the role that he was given, which was as a utility fill-in. The majority of his games were spot duty, filling in for injured guys without looking out of place. I think he did fine at that. But he wasn't ever given much of a role in which he could find a permanent spot in the lineup, and so he never did. Tangradi and Boychuk each got 5-10 games on Malkin's wing last season. Jeffrey got maybe 1. And probably because someone got hurt.

Gibbons' role last night was to provide a spark of energy on the 3rd line as a callup. He did just that. Megna did it as well. But then the team doesn't reward him for success, and ships him down to the minors.

For Bennett, he provided a spark and gave the team another offensive option last year, which they chose not to use. Blysma says he's a top 6 player. That's his role on the team. That's his reward, and promotion for a job well done, even though the company decided not to use his work last year. Blysma then pulls that away from him. So what's his role on the team? Okay kid you're getting a chance on the top line because we need to change things up. He then plays 4th line minutes.

Blysma seems to have no understanding of what it takes to develop young talent. At least forwards. They gotta play. You gotta give them a role suited to their abilities and let them learn it. Let them excel. But DB jerks players around so much, and forces them into roles that fit his needs, but not the player's, and thus, not the team's.... which is why DB fails to get the most out of his guys.

As far as Bennett...they seem to have made the decision that he was playing here this year. Unless he is costing you games, play him. If he is costing you games, send him down or give him a game in the press box to sit back and assess(he's still exempt from waivers, yes?). You are preventing him from developing at all by playing him 5 minutes when the whole team is sucking then benching him for bad play(or more likely no reason at all).

shmenguin wrote:what we're learning is that giving up the puck because you don't know how to accept a pass or have no natural talent is ok. giving up the puck because you're attempting to create offense is not.

this will surely be helpful when we are crapping all over ourselves trying to score goals in about 5 months.

We've also learned that if you make enough money on the team, passing the puck to a) no one or b) directly to the other team is okay, but if you don't make enough money and do that you're benched.

I think it's fair to raise questions about Bennett from a couple angles.

1. We all like his skill and potential, but he's got 3 goals in 36 games. At some point, you have to start wondering if he's going to reach his potential. It's probably a little early for this, but it's definitely beginning to creep into the back of my mind. Some of that is due to his minutes and linemates, but some is on him too.

2. There's a real question concerning whether this coaching staff is capable of successfully bringing along young talent in general. I don't think you can definitively say that they aren't capable, but when you don't really have any positive examples of this happening, it again can start creeping into your mind.

largegarlic wrote:2. There's a real question concerning whether this coaching staff is capable of successfully bringing along young talent in general. I don't think you can definitively say that they aren't capable, but when you don't really have any positive examples of this happening, it again can start creeping into your mind.

On the flip side, what exactly have they been given to develop?

And before people start thinking this is an indictment of Shero, it isn't (well, not entirely).

Since 2000, there have been maybe 5 forwards (outside of the no-brainers in Crosby, Malkin, and Staal) drafted by the Pens organization that have made an impact or at least held on to a roster spot for a small amount of time: Tom Kostopoulos, Ryan Malone, Colby Armstrong, Max Talbot, Tyler Kennedy (I may be forgetting one or two, but we discussed this in chat last night). Erik Christensen might be a stretch. You could also throw in Carcillo and Moulson, as they were developed in the organization, but let go/traded.

While people would like to think this is a "now" problem (so they can grind their axes and what not), the Pens have had nothing for a while in terms of forwards in the system who have been able to crack the lineup.

largegarlic wrote:2. There's a real question concerning whether this coaching staff is capable of successfully bringing along young talent in general. I don't think you can definitively say that they aren't capable, but when you don't really have any positive examples of this happening, it again can start creeping into your mind.

On the flip side, what exactly have they been given to develop?

And before people start thinking this is an indictment of Shero, it isn't (well, not entirely).

Since 2000, there have been maybe 5 forwards (outside of the no-brainers in Crosby, Malkin, and Staal) drafted by the Pens organization that have made an impact or at least held on to a roster spot for a small amount of time: Tom Kostopoulos, Ryan Malone, Colby Armstrong, Max Talbot, Tyler Kennedy (I may be forgetting one or two, but we discussed this in chat last night). Erik Christensen might be a stretch. You could also throw in Carcillo and Moulson, as they were developed in the organization, but let go/traded.

While people would like to think this is a "now" problem (so they can grind their axes and what not), the Pens have had nothing for a while in terms of forwards in the system who have been able to crack the lineup.

I think that's right too. As you mention, it's not like a bunch of guys who didn't get minutes under Bylsma left the organization and really lit it up somewhere else. It might be that players like Bennett, Despres, and Maata (young players with clear potential) will be the real test cases.